Benefits management: Lost or found in translation

•The focus is the development of benefits management (BM) as a management idea.•The spread of BM is viewed through the theoretical lens of translation.•A layered model of the development of BM over the first 25 years is presented.•Although it has spread globally, the impact of BM so far has been limited.•Contextualisation and governance are key factors for BM to be ‘found in translation’.

It is now about 25 years since the emergence of benefits management (BM), but hitherto it has had limited impact on project management and even less on general management practices. This is despite evidence that a focus on benefits improves the success rate of projects and programmes. One of the areas for research to explain the limited uptake concerns the spread of knowledge on BM and its adoption by organisations. The theoretical lens of translation is used to examine this issue, which focuses on the processes through which management ideas spread and influence management practice. The global development of BM is traced to identify the changes in translation processes over time and the current geographical patterns of usage. This analysis is used in conjunction with the limited evidence available on translation processes at the level of the organisation to identify key factors for the impact of BM in the future.